Lost & Found
by Arkham's Incurable
Summary: In the aftermath of the events on Blackwood Mountain, Sam, Chris, and Mike return to the burned remains of the lodge in search of the friend they left behind. They can only hope that he's still alive, but if he is, what if the Josh they knew might be too far gone? Can they save him in time?
1. Preface

**Disclaimer:** I unfortunately do not own Until Dawn or any of its lovely characters. This piece of writing is mine, though, so please don't take, repost, etc.. It's also rated T for language and some slight gore. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

The police deemed the events at the lodge to be the result of the mystery man the Blackwood Mountain Park Rangers had been hunting since 1998. The evidence was all there to them. Known threats to the Washington family, collected fragments of burnt newspaper detailing a suspect wanted in suspicion of arson all over the grounds, and fresh clues around the house all pointed to the mystery man. That's what they told the news at least.

The survivors knew, however, that this was not the case. Of course the police wouldn't believe their story of cannibals turned monsters, they'd disregard their story as the insane tale of traumatized children. There's no way they could tell what they went through without sounding crazy. Ashley, Matt, and Chris had wanted to tell the authorities everything, but Mike and Emily had brought up how absolutely ridiculous they'd sound. They had put it to a vote, Jessica voting not to tell because she couldn't bear the thought of their story being mocked all over the news and Sam finally voting no because the thought of people poking fun at Josh's death by wendigo made her sick to the core. So, they kept quiet.

When the inferno at the lodge had finally sizzled down, the authorities had informed them that they would be searching the grounds vigorously for their attacker and missing friend. Sam insisted that she come with them, rattling off why she should go for closure and to help them find clues until the authorities finally caved. She had to find Josh... or worse, his body, what might be left of it anyway. She had to say goodbye.

Chris insisted on going as well, for the same reasons. He had to make peace with his best friend, despite what Josh put them through. Mike joined in the trip as well, but not for the same reasons. He needed to see the place where they almost died again. He needed to understand and process everything that had happened. The doctors discouraged it, considering the risk of infection in his missing fingers, but that was just one more reason for him to investigate.

Emily couldn't bring herself to go back to that place. She almost died dangling hundreds of feet in the air from a broken radio tower and was almost eaten alive by monsters she had never thought to logically be real, not to mention that her ex-boyfriend had almost shot her to death in that place. No, she couldn't go back, never again. That's one nightmare she's resolved to forget and close. Matt, of course, stayed by her side and didn't join the group going back to the lodge either.

Ashley was too traumatized to join. She wanted to be with Chris and make sure he was safe going back there, but the fear was too much. The flashbacks of that place refused to leave her mind. Every time she closed her eyes she saw those horrible creatures and heard their spine chilling screams. Jessica didn't join them either, her injuries far too serious. The doctors said that she was lucky to be alive considering the trauma her body took. There was no way the doctors were letting her out of the hospital to go searching for clues in such an unsafe terrain.

After four days of hospital observation and police questioning, Sam, Mike, and Chris joined a team of firefighters, park rangers, and detectives to go back to the place that had almost cost them their lives, making sure that they waited until dawn.

* * *

 **A/N-** The next chapters will be much longer than this, but I hope you've enjoyed the preface to my story and will stick around.


	2. Chapter 1 (Sam)

Sam's heart beats hard against her chest, her breathing becoming quicker and quicker the closer the helicopter gets to the lodge. Rationally she knows that the wendigos won't be out right now, it's broad daylight, and she knows that she's safe, but that doesn't stop the panic from seeping through her veins. And judging by the fact that Chris keeps fidgeting with his glasses, it would seem she's not the only one incredibly nervous. Across from her Mike seems surprisingly fine on the surface, but her eyes don't miss the way his Adam's apple keeps bobbing up and down.

The wreckage of the lodge comes into view and Sam's heart lurches at the site of the blackened ruins. If she hadn't been there, she wouldn't think that it had ever been a lodge. According to the authorities, it took the firefighters two days to put out the blaze and another two for the area to cool down. The broken, bare bones of trees around where the large structure was and the sheer amount of wreckage agree with their statement. She still can't believe that she did all of this, that she burned that massive building to the ground. She's doesn't regret it, there really wasn't even a choice, but the amount of destruction she caused makes her wary of her own strength.

The helicopter lands and after a few stern words from the fire chief, they follow a group of officials into the wreckage. Uneasiness grips Sam's stomach and a chill works its way up her spine as she steps into the rubble. In front of her, she spots a torn and smoke stained portrait of the Washington family. Beth, Hannah, and part of Josh's mom's face are missing, leaving only the faces of Josh and his father left for her to see. She stares at it for a long moment when-

A cold hand touches her shoulder and she jumps, stifling a scream.

"Whoa, sorry," Chris quickly apologizes and Sam breathes a sigh of relief. Rationally she knows that the wendigos won't come out in broad daylight, but the paranoia that comes from being back scares her far more than she'd care to admit. "I really didn't mean to scare you. This place," his voice trails off for a long moment. "We have to be more careful around this place. It's seriously freaking me out too."

"Scared of the monsters?" Mike muses, coming over towards them. "That strange guy's book said they don't come out after dawn, right? Then we should be fine, but let's get the hell out of here before the sun sets. I don't need to experience any of _that_ again." Sam tightens her jacket and Chris nods absently. "Okay, so how are we going to play this?"

"We need to check the basement," Sam replies. "If Josh made it out, maybe he followed the path from the mines back to that room in the old hotel we found the book in. He could've followed that back to the basement."

"And maybe those creepy fuckers did too," Mike retorts. "You see the foundation of the lodge? It's practically untouched. If those things made it into the basement, the blast probably didn't kill them and I sure as hell don't want to find out if they survived."

"If there's a chance Josh could be down there, then we need to check," Chris says adamantly. "We owe it to him to look. Yeah, he did some shitty stuff, but we left him behind in the mines with those things. If he made it out, then we have to help him."

"Look, I feel guilty about leaving him behind too. Josh was a great guy, aside from the prank, but he's been down there with those things for _four_ days." Sam opens her mouth to say something, but Mike holds up a hand. "I know what you're going to say, Sam. One of those things was Hannah. I know, I saw the tattoo too, but did it really look like she had any recollection of life? Because to me she looked like all she wanted was flesh and she certainly didn't recognize us." Mike runs a hand through his hair, then grabs his stubble coated chin. "I know it's hard to face, but I think that we need to accept that Josh is dead. The sooner we accept it, the sooner we can move on from this nightmare."

"I'll accept it after we check the basement," Sam announces, unwavering. "If those things are down there, then we have an army of park rangers with guns looking for anything suspicious. Plus, I have this." She pulls a silver plated lighter out of her pocket and flicks the switch with her thumb, revealing a small orange flame.

"Uh," Chris begins, staring at the small flame. "I don't mean to be a downer, but I don't think that's going to do much against the wendigos."

Sam rolls her eyes. "Not this alone, silly. I assume the rangers will be shooting, and with shooting comes gun powder. If we're lucky, we might can light the place up with the combination. Let's not aim to do that, of course, we already did burn down the main building and the sanatorium," she mutters.

"What are you kids doing?" the lead detective on their case questions loudly, making his way over to them.

"Uh, hello, we were cold," Mike replies nonchalantly, taking Sam's lighter and waving it around for the detective to see. "You guys have just been standing around, so we banded together to fight the cold. We're ready to sleuth as soon as you guys are."

The detective cuts his eyes at Mike, to which the teenager replies with a charismatic smile as he hands Sam her lighter back. "Our search and rescue team have found some artifacts in the rubble, see if you can recognize anything," the detective announces, hiking up towards where the front steps used to be. The survivors step up on the foundation behind him, staring at the array of burned and broken objects laid out for them to examine.

The first thing that catches Sam's eye is the music box Josh gave Hannah for Christmas. She kneels down and brushes the ash off the top of it, then gently lifts the lid. The tune that comes out of the box is jagged, pausing in places, and the ballerina moves unsteadily, but she's surprised it works at all. If you look hard enough past all of the caked on ash, you can kind of see the engraving underneath lid. "This was Hannah's," she tells the detective, setting the box back down. "It's always been here."

"This was Josh's dad's trophy," Chris adds, picking up a golden base to what was once a trophy. "He won it for a short film he did. The basement was always full of props and things from his films." Chris glances at Sam and she tries to ignore the fact that Chris scaring her in the monk uniform was the least terrifying thing to happen that night. "I'm sorry, I can't make out what these are," he adds, lifting several torn and stained papers. "Letters, maybe? This one kind of looks like Josh's mother's handwriting."

The detective nods, then scowls at Mike, who happens to be fiddling with his phone in one hand and a burned object in the other. "And what the hell do you think you're doing? This is a crime scene, not something to post on your Instagram page."

"Shh," Mike replies hastily, hitting a button on his phone. At that moment, the burned object in his hand begins to faintly ring. "This is Josh's phone," he announces. "Didn't you say he left this in the basement, though, Sam?"

"Yeah, it was in one of the rooms down there," she replies, taking the item from his hand. She peers at it, having last seen in it the room where Josh prepared his prank as the psycho. It was full of messages from psychiatrists. "I definitely didn't move it. I left it on the table in there."

"This could be a good sign, right?" Chris questions eagerly. "If none of us moved it, maybe he did."

"It could've come up with the explosion, there were some old parts of the basement that were burned along with the house," the detective informs them, taking Josh's phone and dropping it into an evidence bag. The room Sam found it in had been pretty old, probably part of the original structure. Upon seeing her and Chris's expressions, the detective adds, "But let's not give up just yet. There's still a chance we could find your friend. We don't know for sure if the killer had him captive in the house when it exploded."

"Maybe we should check the basement then," Mike suggests slyly, glancing at Sam and Chris out of the corner of his eye. "That's where we're going to have the greatest chance of finding him if he's alive, right?"

"There are protocols in place, son," the detective replies. "The fire department hasn't determined the stability of the basement yet. If we go barging in there now, the whole place could cave in from the fire damage. Even after that, my men have to go in and search it for the killer who did all of this first before we let anyone else in there. Sorry kids."

"Josh could be alive down there," Sam argues, waving an arm towards the crumpled stairs leading to a slab of burned concrete in front of the basement door. "He could be hurt and is probably dehydrated and starving. You can't just risk leaving him down there. It's already been four days."

"If we go down there and the whole thing caves in, we'll all be trapped down there too," the detective retorts. "I'm not risking four lives to save one, not with this little information. I brought you out here for you to help us understand what happened the night the lodge burned down, not to join in a manhunt for your friend."

"How long is it going to take for the firefighters to determine if the area is safe?" Mike questions.

"I don't know. A few days, maybe. They've got to test the stability of the outside foundation and walls. Trust me, you don't want them to rush the process."

"If we help you out with all of the clues and memories of what happened, will you let us join in the manhunt when the basement is safe to enter?" Mike continues.

"Are you trying to barter with the truth of something that might've killed your friend?" the detective asks, incredulous.

"We need closure," Mike says convincingly. "Going through all of these things you've found and recounting the events over and over again aren't going to help _us_ ," he gestures to Chris and Sam, "get over or move past what happened without closure. We need to search the basement and see firsthand what's down there. We need it to heal."

The detective stares at Mike passively. "And if we find the killer down there, _alive_ , is that really going to help you heal?"

Sam resists the urge to snort. If only the police knew who the real killer, or rather killers, were in all of this mess.

"Yes, it will. We'll be able to see for ourselves that he's brought to justice, not second guess hearing about it from some tabloid journalist on channel 54. So, do we have a deal? We help you piece together the events as best we can and you help give us some much needed closure?" Mike barters.

"I'll think about it. My men have found some more stuff over there," he points to the rubble in the not-so-far distance. "You should go help them with the identification of the items. I'll let you know what I decide later. And look, even if the basement isn't secure, the park rangers have been combing the mountain for your friend 24/7. The basement isn't our only shot of finding him."

"Thank you, detective," Chris begins, then pauses for a moment. "You should tell the firemen not to work too late into the night," he says tentatively. "When we were out here running for our lives, we ran into some pretty nasty animals that like to come out when the sun sets. Make sure the workers leave before it gets too dark out here."


	3. Chapter 2 (Jess)

Three days later, everyone except for Mike sits around Jessica's hospital bed. Despite her rather pissed off pleas, the doctors won't release her for another few days on account of her broken ribs, concussion, punctured lung, and the staph infection she got in all of her wounds from trekking through the rusty mines. In her mind, the painkillers are the only perk of being cooped up in this place.

"How are you feeling, Jess?" Matt questions from his spot on her hospital dresser. "Any better?"

"The pain's okay," she replies nonchalantly, even though having three broken ribs really fucking hurts. The physical pain, however, dulls in comparison to the mental kind. "It's easier to breathe, the docs say that my lung is healing up nicely."

"That's good," Ashley says quietly, rubbing the tape over her broken nose absentmindedly from her spot next to Chris on the little green hospital couch. "A week is probably plenty of time for broken ribs to heal, especially if they're just leaving them alone. I'm sure they'll let you out of here soon."

"Not soon enough," Jessica mutters, fiddling with the paper medical bracelet around her wrist. "And where the hell is Mike? We all told him to be here at noon and it's almost twelve thirty." Ever since that night at the lodge, she's been a little wound up as to where he goes. She doesn't want to be controlling, honestly, but with his darn plan of going back to the lodge even being a remote possibility thanks to his stupid, but charmingly charismatic bargaining skills, she's worried that one day the rangers will come by and tell her that he was killed exploring the lodge's basement.

"I'm sure he's fine," Emily replies.

"Did I say I was worried?" Jessica all but snaps. After a long pause, she adds a weak, "Sorry." After what happened down in the mines, her and Emily have been trying to be somewhat nicer to each other, what with almost dying and all. Some days it proves to be a bit difficult, though.

"Maybe he's talking to the detective in charge of our case," Sam offers hopefully, even though Jess can tell she doubts that's the case. "It's been three days, the fire department has to be close to figuring out if the basement's stable."

"Unless all of the firemen got eaten by horrific creatures," Emily retorts. Upon seeing the expressions of everyone in the room, she adds, "I want Josh to be alive just as much as you guys, but that mountain was full of those _things_. We barely survived one night, how the hell could Josh possibly survive seven?"

Before the weight of that thought can set in too deep, Mike waltzes into the room. In one hand he holds a very old and familiar looking journal and in the other he catches the container of hospital jello Jess throws irately at him. He tosses the jello back to her playfully and then holds up the book in his hand, as if that explains where he's been all morning.

"Where have you been?" Jessica demands.

"Woah, babe, chill out. I was looking into this," he replies. She stares at the book with an unwavering expression as he hands it to her. "We found it in the old hotel that night. I was going through it to see if I could find something that might help us."

"Help us with what?" Sam questions as Jess flips through the book. She doesn't slow down to read the text, only glancing at the titles of the pages and the words underlined. When she comes to a hand drawn picture of the thing that attacked her, her heart begins to beat a little faster and she shuts the book quickly. _You're fine_ , she tells herself. _It can't hurt you anymore_.

"For when we go down into the basement, and trust me, we _will_. The detective needs us to navigate down there," Mike replies assuredly. "I was looking to see if the wendigos had any more weaknesses besides fire. Shotguns seem to slow them down, which I know from unfortunate personal experience, but that's about all I could find. The old guy stabbed one of them, but it didn't do much. He wasn't even sure if the sunlight hurts them. There are a couple of theories in there, but evidently the only sure fire way to kill them is with fire."

"Was there anything else in there?" Chris questions.

"Yeah, lots. That old dude had been studying and trying to kill them for years. He had all that paperwork from the psychiatrists in 1952 at the asylum. Those notes had all the details of their transformation and his journal has everything that he knew about killing them, or rather keeping them hostage. That was a _real_ pleasant surprise when I was exploring the sanatorium. I took the notes from 1952 with me when I was there too, thought they might come in handy."

"What does that matter?" Emily demands. "Who cares how they became monsters, that's what they are now. There's no changing that. They're going to kill you whether you know their backstory or not."

"You don't want to know what those things are?" Matt inquires, surprised.

"No, I don't. I've learned all I care to up close and personal with them and I sure as hell don't want to revisit it. I'll be happy never thinking about them or that stupid mountain ever again," Emily answers, crossing her arms.

"You don't think you'll run into those things again, do you?" Ashley asks tentatively, glancing at Chris worriedly. "You told the detective you had to go down there in the daytime, right?"

"Look, I just went through this stuff as a precaution," Mike interrupts. "I thought it'd be good for us to maybe have some kind of backup plan in case we run into those things when we explore the basement. I didn't mean to upset anyone, alright?" He takes the book from Jessica and tucks it in his waistband. "See, there. The big bad book is gone. Let's all relax."

"We're all on edge, let's just take a second to breathe," Sam agrees, taking a deep, exaggerated breath. "What happened to us up on that mountain was inexplicably horrifying. It's hard to talk about or even think about, but we were all there and we all know what each other went through. We need to keep it together. If not for our own sakes, then for everyone else's."

Mike's cell phone rings and he glances from the caller ID to the group. "It's the detective in charge of the case," he announces, pressing the green accept button. As his figure disappears out into the hall, some part of Jessica hopes that the detective is calling to tell him that the basement won't ever be stable enough to investigate. She doesn't want to give up on Josh or accept that he's dead, but she barely made it out after a few hours with those things. From her experience, seven days would be impossible. And she can't bear the thought of losing Mike, they'd already been through so much together. To lose him now and to those things would just be cruel.

After several moments and a few barely heard argumentative words later, Mike comes back into the room and everyone stares at him, as if the whole room is holding its breath awaiting his news.

"The detective said that the basement has been deemed stable," Mike informs them with a grin. He turns to Sam and Chris and says, "We're going to be leaving in half an hour. The detective's going to pick us up in front of the hospital and then we'll take the helicopter up to the mountain again."

"He's just letting you go?" Jess questions, genuinely surprised at having her fears confirmed. "They don't even know what's down there; for all they know our so-called 'killer' could be down there."

"The mines and tunnels to and from the old hotel don't have any blueprints. I told him before that we'd help him piece together what happened if he let us go down there and get closure. That wasn't good enough right up until the moment he needed people who had been down there to navigate and as I reminded him, finding others to do it would cost time. Time that Josh doesn't have. So, he agreed, reluctantly." Mike turns back to Sam and Chris, then says, "He also told me to remind you that you don't have to do this."

"Yes we do," Sam replies firmly as Jessica crosses her arms. It might seem selfish that she doesn't want her boyfriend out looking for Josh, who she really does hope survived somehow, but she can't lose anyone or anything else to this nightmare.

"If Josh is out there, we have to find him," Chris agrees.

"Be careful you guys," Ashley offers. "I want Josh to come back home too, but I don't want you getting lost down there with him, okay?" Chris nods and Ashley hugs him briefly, as if it might be their last time.

Mike comes in close to Jessica and she wraps her arms around his neck, knowing that there's no changing his mind once it's made up. "I want you to know I think this is absolutely crazy. Going back there is practically a death wish." Mike chuckles and she sighs heftily. "But if you must go up there, be safe. Don't go grabbing monsters by their teeth, alright?"

"I promise I won't go out grabbing monsters by the balls," Mike agrees, giving her a brief peck on the lips. "Rest up, I'll be back here before you know it and then maybe we can have that romantic date after all." She lets her arms drop from around his neck and his hand lingers on hers briefly before he finally lets go.

"Alright," Chris begins from the doorway, as if pumping himself up. "Let's go find Josh."


	4. Chapter 3 (Mike)

Mike's feet hit the snow covered ground with a hard crunch as he climbs out of the helicopter, Sam and Chris close behind. He shrugs his jacket on tighter and zips it up to his chest, ignoring the chill that tries to work its way into his bones. Wearing two layers of clothing is a hell of a lot nicer than wandering around in a thin tank top and jeans. Being surrounded by other people in that creepy ass basement will also be a pleasant change this time around. And maybe this time he'll be able to get away with all eight of his remaining fingers still intact.

The lack of fingers doesn't really bother him. He still has the most functional three left and besides, chicks dig scars. Sympathy sex is still sex, not that he would ever mention that around Jessica. She doesn't care about his hand, that doesn't bother her, and he does genuinely care for her. They've been through some serious shit together, but he knows the future is never set in stone. He had never really thought that he and Em would split, but here he is happily with Jess. Sometimes it's good to consider the future without people, even if you don't plan on losing them.

"Detective!" Mike calls loudly over the sound of spinning chopper blades. The detective turns to him as the helicopter begins to shut off. "I think I should carry a gun down there with you guys."

"You want to carry a gun?" the detective repeats flatly. "We've got a whole group of trained men with guns. You're safe, trust me."

"With all due respect, you've never been down in those basements," Mike replies evenly. "You haven't seen how confusing the hallways and tunnels are, or even know where the hidden rooms are for that matter. I've gone down there and Sam," the blonde headed girl glances at him warningly, "well she knows how to get into some of those secret rooms. You're probably going to need us to lead and if we come across the son of a bitch who did this, I'd rather not take any chances." Mike pulls his wallet out of his pocket and hands the detective a card. "I've got a hunting license, if that helps."

"You want me to hand you a gun that you might shoot without it being authorized to you?"

"We gotta protect ourselves," Mike answers simply.

"No," the detective replies sternly, handing him back his card.

"Mike's right," Sam intervenes. "That basement twists and turns all over the place. You need us in the front to help navigate and from our experience in that house, we need to protect ourselves in case we get separated. You'd rather have an unauthorized gun being shot than three dead teenagers, right?"

"Kids-"

"What happens if we're up front and that maniac comes out?" Chris questions hastily. "He could grab one of us before your men see him and shoot. Let's not take chances. You can say a deputy fired the gun. You can come up with something to explain it. People aren't going to care how a psychotic murderer died as long as everyone else ends up safe."

"You kids are a pain in the ass," the detective mutters, pulling a pistol out of the holder around his ankle. He goes to hand it to Mike, but Mike holds up his hands. "What, this one not good enough for you?"

"I'm better with shotguns."

Sighing irately, the detective goes and takes one of the shotguns from his men, then hands it to Mike. "There, now we need to establish a few ground rules. One, if that shotgun goes off on someone or something that is not a danger to you, I'm telling everyone you stole it and went rogue. Two, I want you all to stay close to the group of rangers. You may be leading us around down there, but if you make any move to ditch or run off to go on your own escapade, I will take you back to the surface and this little excursion with continue without you. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Sam replies before Mike can answer.

"Everyone listen up!" the detective yells to his men. "We're looking for Joshua Washington, a picture of him has been sent to all of your phones. However, he's been down in the basement for seven days, possibly without food or water, so he might not look quite like his picture anymore. If you see anyone who remotely resembles a teenage boy, don't shoot. With that, you also have a sketch drawing of what the suspect looks like, and he's probably armed and extremely dangerous. Proceed with caution."

The detective gestures to the broken staircase leading down into a burnt concrete tiled room. Mike takes a seat where the staircase begins and grips the edge tightly, then fearlessly jumps down into the basement. The impact ricochets throughout his ankles, but quickly dissipates as Sam, Chris, and the detective land behind him. Sam hands him a flashlight as the detective goes up to the basement entrance with a crowbar. He jams it between the steel door and the lock and heaves, allowing the door to open with a loud groan.

A speck of nervousness crawls up Mike's spine as he steps forward into the first room of the dimly lit basement. He had been as fine as a person can be being chased by Native American legends up in the sanatorium. The loneliness had freaked him out, but he hadn't been overtly terrified. He hadn't even been that nervous during the helicopter ride up here. So why now, looking straight into the pitch black face of the basement with a team of armed officials behind him, is he nervous?

Maybe it's the idea of seeing those things again. Maybe it's the idea of finding Josh's body half-eaten alive. He's not sure what the reason, but he squares his shoulders and attempts valiantly to shake the nervousness off.

"I was down here with Ash," Chris speaks up, his voice less than enthusiastic. "I can lead first, unless you wanted to, Mike." Mike steps back and gestures for Chris to come forward, much to the blond haired boy's disappointment. Chris steps forward and takes the flashlight from Mike, reluctantly starting down the hallway.

Burn marks trickle down like blackened waterfalls from the tops of the walls and soot coats the floor. It's not nearly as bad as the remains of the lodge, but the burn marks aren't coming out of the walls any time soon. Despite the huge blaze that once raged above it, the basement is cold and unfriendly. The chill that hangs in the air down here is all too familiar.

"Are you sure you know where you're going, Chris?" Mike questions, never having been in this part of the basement before.

"Yeah, of course," Chris grumbles and Mike looks at him dubiously.

"No, really, he does," Sam interjects. "I was down here with Josh for a little bit. We're a few feet past where the radiator and hot water heater were. I guess that part of the basement didn't really survive the blast."

They walk for a few more minutes, all three of them glancing in every cranny hoping to find a holed up Josh. There's been no sign of him so far, no footprints in the soot or blood smears against the wall. They haven't covered nearly even half of the basement and where it leads to yet, but Mike doesn't expect they'll find anything down there either. It's been seven days. They almost died after one night. It's simply not possible Josh survived that long and especially not in the delusional state he was in that night either. It sucks and even though he doesn't want it to be, it's most likely the truth.

Chris stops outside of two steel double doors with circular viewing windows and Mike faintly hears him catch his breath. Mike peers inside to see the room where they found out Josh was the psycho all along. One saw blade still hangs up ahead over the table, the other one dislodged and broken on the floor from the explosion.

"Is that a torture chamber?" the detective demands.

"No," Chris replies quickly, his voice sounding a little hollow. "Josh's dad liked making movies. That was just one of the sets for a horror one. The saws don't even work." Chris takes another lingering look at the room and for a moment Mike wonders what it must be like to find out your best friend made you choose between shooting yourself or the girl you love. Of course the gun wasn't loaded with real bullets, but neither of them knew that.

Sam takes over at the front of the group, leading them on silently for a few minutes. They soon come to a wooded room that looks almost like a workshop. Soot covers nearly everything, several shelves have been knocked down by the blast, and part of the room is burned beyond recognition, but the layout resembles that of a working space. Mike doesn't miss the way Sam's eyes trail the detective nervously as he picks up and glances at objects in here.

"This more movie stuff?" the detective questions, flipping through Josh's plans of being sawed in half. Sam and Chris nod hastily and the detective moves on. Sam stops in front of a table, subtly blocking whatever's on it. It looks to be a folder of some kind. "Is that everything in here?"

"It is indeed," Sam replies lightly. She quickly pushes the folder beneath some boxes, then leads them out and down another hallway.

"What was that?" Mike whispers.

"Josh's psychiatric notes," she murmurs. She leads them down a set of stairs, where there's a small table with what looks like an answering machine on it. "That's just a prop too," Sam informs the detective before he can ask about it. "The dang thing never even worked." The detective nods in acknowledgement and Mike raises an eyebrow. "Josh practiced his, uh, psycho voice on it," Sam informs him beneath her breath.

"Ah," Mike replies quietly, not sure what to think about the amount of effort Josh put into his prank to scare them. What he's more curious about, however, is why Josh didn't involve him in the psychotic prank. He was the one who lured Hannah into the bedroom that night after all.

Though, maybe it wasn't entirely about that. Sam had told him that Josh said Chris and Ashley needed to go through something traumatic to bond over and realize their feelings for each other. Maybe it was about that all along. Chris was his best friend, maybe in some sick way he was just trying to help him. Maybe that was the main goal and all of the other scares were his revenge for what they put Hannah through. But if that's the case, then why scare Sam? To make it believable to everyone else?

Mike shakes the thoughts from his mind, the endless possibilities of why giving him a headache. There's no use in trying to understand Josh's reasoning, the dude clearly had some mental health issues. It's better to just let the beginning of that night go, considering it was far from the worst thing to happen on the mountain.

"I'm afraid this is as far as I know," Sam says loudly, coming to a hallway visibly older than the rest of them. "Michael?"

Mike shrugs. "Sorry, I haven't been down this one. I only know how to navigate through the tunnels from the sanatorium to here. I mean, I can take us to where they start, but I don't know this path."

"I do," Chris offers reluctantly. "It leads down to the old hotel."

"Really?" Mike questions, surprised. "This place is a goddamn maze. Detective, what do you think?"

"Let's do your tunnels last. Your friend probably would have stayed closer to the basement than he would've the sanatorium. Do you know which path he would've been more familiar with?"

"This one," Chris says quickly. "He knew how to get to the old hotel, but he never mentioned going near the sanatorium. I'm sure the paths join up close together somewhere, but I know for a fact he's gone this way before."

"Okay, this way it is then," the detective decides. Chris starts forward down the hallway and the others follow, their footsteps echoing loudly in the emptiness. As they walk, Mike wonders who the hell built all these passages around the mountain. "Speaking of the sanatorium, did any of you see it blow up?"

"We saw some smoke," Mike replies carefully.

"So none of you were there when it happened?"

"Nope, afraid not. We only got to witness one explosion, but one is enough for me," Mike answers. There's no way in hell anyone would believe he blew up the sanatorium to kill a bunch of cannibals turned monsters and he'd rather not go to jail for arson. "I guess the guy trying to kill us had evidence in there."

"Uh-huh," the detective says flatly. "Tell me again what happened with the explosion upstairs."

"The psycho chasing us had cut the gas line," Sam tells him. "We knew he had to be somewhere in the house, but we lost him somewhere down in the basement. I knew that I could set the explosion off by breaking open a light bulb, turning on the light, and igniting the gas. So, I took the risk and flipped the light switch and then, well, now here we are."

Sam stops suddenly and Mike bumps into her. "Sam, what are you-" He stops mid-sentence as he follows the trail of her gaze, which ends at five long claw marks down the wall. A chill runs up his spine at the remembrance of those marks all over the sanatorium. Though, they don't appear to be quite as deep. "Were those here before?"

"No," Chris says, visibly shaken. "They weren't."

* * *

 **A/N-** Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and follows so far! They mean a lot to me. I really hope you're enjoying the story so far and will stick around to see how it progresses. As always, reviews are always welcome. :)


	5. Chapter 4 (Chris)

"Hold up, kids," the detective says, stepping in front of the three survivors. He pulls out an evidence bag and scrapes pieces of the indented wallpaper into the bag with a pocketknife. Chris stares at the long nail marks with a shiver, hoping that they were made sometime before the lodge erupted into flames. The detective hands the bag off to one of his men and motions for Chris to keep walking.

Fear continues to creep up the back of Chris's neck as he starts forward into the underground of the old hotel. Part of him knows that he's insane for doing this, for coming anywhere near here again, but he can't leave behind the possibility of Josh being alive. There's only a slim chance they'll find him down here, dead or alive, but he has to take it. They left Josh out there in that shed open for the wendigos. They didn't turn back for him down in the mines. They at least owe him this.

Chris can't help but wonder if this could've all been avoided a year ago. If he and Josh hadn't of drank so much, if Chris had just stopped both of them a few drinks earlier, then maybe everyone would be alive. How many skipped drinks would it have taken to avoid all of this? Two or three? Maybe even just a single one?

 _Stop thinking like that_ , Chris tells himself as they enter the old hotel's kitchen. _There's nothing you can do to change what's already happened_. Carefully ignoring the room with the projector in it, Chris leads them all around the kitchen. The detective's men quickly grab samples of the pig hanging from the ceiling as the detective himself examines the soot covered pictures of the eight teenagers strung up in one of the lockers.

The blond haired boy continues leading the search all the way down to the room where Josh had the monitors of the video cameras watching them. The screens are all blank on account of the explosion, but the creepy memory of what used to be there remains. It hurts to think of just how much effort Josh put into terrifying them and the idea of him hitting Ash still stings.

The pure hurt he feels is lessened by what Sam told him she found in the basement. A psychiatric disorder means the prank wasn't something he did as himself, as the Josh he knows. Something in him snapped when his sisters died and Josh acted in a way he couldn't control because of his mental health. On the other hand, the realization that Chris hadn't noticed his best friend was having psychiatric problems makes his stomach weigh heavy with guilt. He had just thought Josh was grieving, that he'd come around with time. He never thought the problems ran deeper than that.

"That's it for down here," Chris announces, shaking the thoughts from his mind. "Mike, why don't you take us down to where this place meets up with the tunnel to the sanatorium? Sound good, detective?"

The detective nods gruffly and Mike takes the flashlight from Chris, seemingly fearless. He still doesn't understand how Mike is able to act so calm and collected through all of this, even during that night. Chris could barely fend off the one wendigo that killed the stranger, let alone the six or seven Mike faced in the sanatorium that night. Maybe the whole thing is just some tough guy façade, but if it is, then it's a damn good one.

"We're going to find him," Sam tells Chris quietly, clasping a hand on his shoulder. "One way or another," she mutters.

"And if we don't?" he questions, the possibility of it growing nearer and nearer. They've searched the whole basement and the old hotel, the mines and the remains of the sanatorium are the only places left and the mines are way too dangerous. With every place they search and fail to find Josh, his heart drops deeper and deeper into his stomach.

"He could be out in the woods," Sam replies, somewhat weaker than her previous answer. "This land stretches for acres. He's got to be out there somewhere. If we don't find anything, the park rangers will. And if they don't, then we'll deal with it. Alright?" Chris nods and Sam manages a weak smile. "We can't give up just yet."

"We're going to find him," Chris agrees, wishing optimism was enough. "Josh is a tough guy, right?"

"Josh is one resourceful son of a bitch," Mike answers. "Did you see all of the shit he put together for that night? That plan took a whole lot of thought. The kid's smart."

"You don't even think he's alive," Chris mutters, dropping down into the tunnel that leads to both the sanatorium and the mines.

"Josh is smart, but so are all the other monsters on the mountain," Mike retorts.

"What monsters?" the detective questions, landing loudly behind them.

"Oh, you know, just the usual bears, wolves, deer, birds, and the occasional psychopath. Man, that reminds me of the dying deer Jess and I came across, urgh," he shudders as he leads them down one of the various breakaway tunnels. "I hate seeing dead animals. Hey, I wonder if Wolfie's around here somewhere."

"Wolfie?"

"Uh, yeah. I met this wolf when I was chasing after the guy who tried to kill Jess. It was a nice wolf, helped me find my way. I named him Wolfie." The detective replies with some sort of incredulous scoff, to which Mike defensively says, "What, is it a crime to make friends with wolves now?"

"No, it's not a crime. It's just strange," the detective says. "Wolves typically don't make friends."

"Yeah, well, I'm good with animals. Sorry you haven't made any wolf friends lately," Mike replies sarcastically. "Asshole," he mutters under his breath, just loud enough for Chris and Sam to hear. "Well what do we have here," Mike muses, picking up an unlit torch. "This must've been one of the psycho's. Sam, toss me your lighter." He hands Chris the flashlight and lights the torch, igniting a soft glow throughout the tunnel.

"What the hell are you going to do with a torch? You've got a flashlight," the detective announces disapprovingly.

"No, now Chris has a flashlight and not me," Mike answers matter-of-factly. " _I_ have a torch." Chris snorts, much to the detective's obvious annoyance and Mike cracks a smile. The tall dark haired boy leads them forward until he stops abruptly with the statement, "Well that's not creepy or anything."

Chris resists the urge to shake at the sight of another set of claw marks across the mine wall. What scares him the most is that he can't discern whether or not the marks were made by a human or by one of those things. He's not sure which one would be worse either; the idea of a wendigo down here or the idea that these desperate marks were made by Josh. And those marks don't look like the kind you make when walking, but rather the kind you make when being dragged.

"Huh, this is weird," Mike says as the detective takes a scraping of the marks. Chris glances over at him to see a very slim, shadowy break in the tunnel. "I never noticed this way before, it must've been too dark. It looks like it might lead to the same place, though. Think we should check it out?"

"Yes, I think we should," Sam answers before the detective can reply. "Maybe Josh found it and slipped through. It looks pretty easy to miss, maybe he's been hiding out through there for the past few days. We should check it out to be sure."

"The fire crew only checked the structural integrity so far outwards. We're way past the basement at this point, which is the only place I promised to help you look. Now I've catered to you searching the old hotel and thus far, but I can't allow a bunch of teenagers to go exploring in potentially unsafe environments they haven't even seen. I'm sorry about Josh, but this is as far as we go," the detective announces.

"We're already here. Josh could literally only be a few feet away from us," Chris argues. "We haven't come this far to give up now. We're going, with or without you." As much as Chris hates arguing with authority figures who could very easily make his life hell, he's not giving up this close to covering all the grounds. Josh is worth whatever mess might come from defying a detective.

"Chris is right," Sam agrees. "We're not giving up, even if you are."

"And if they're going, so am I," Mike seconds with a nonchalant shrug. "Sorry, too late for arguments." And with that, Mike slips through the small crevice in the tunnel wall. Sam follows in suit and against the logical part of his brain telling him this could potentially be a _very_ bad idea, Chris slips through behind her.

"Wait a second," Mike says slowly, glancing around. They appear to have ended up in some kind of watery hallway. The pools of water reflect the darkness of the room eerily, giving off a chillingly glassy surface. Sam stills beside him, recognition and then horror filtering across her face. "This is where that thing-"

"Dammit kids," the detective growls, slipping in behind them. He's quickly cut off by an almost guttural sound from around the corner. It's not quite the scream that haunts Chris's nightmares, but it's similar, only more… _human_. There's an awful gnawing sound with it, almost as if something's being eaten. The sound makes Chris's stomach churn and a tremor of fear crawls up his back as his mind screams at him not to look around the corner.

 _Don't look_ , his mind tells him as Sam and Mike step forward to glance around the corner. _You don't want to see what might be down there_. He takes a step forward, his heart beating hard in his ears. _This is a bad idea, Chris_. The world suddenly slows, as if someone hit the pause button, and his head turns slowly to follow the others gaze. When he sees what's beyond the corner, he freezes.

"Josh?"

It looks like his best friend, only it doesn't. It's wearing the same clothes and has the same hair, but it's covered in blood and the noise… the noise it's making doesn't sound like Josh. And there's… _oh god_. There's a head in his hands.

And suddenly the world is very clear.

"We've got a survivor!" the detective yells, quickly alerting the attention of Josh. "Is that a head in his hands? Dear God!" he shouts as Josh comes lunging towards them.

" _NO!_ " Sam screams, grasping for the detective's raised shotgun. It happens too fast for Chris to react, for him to stop it.

 ** _BANG!_**

* * *

 **A/N-** I really appreciate the continued support and hope you guys are enjoying the story! The guest user "Stranger" (I like the choice of name) has asked me what the couple pairings are for this story. Though they're not explicitly mentioned, I tried to keep them pretty in tune with the game's story ships, with Chris/Ashley, Matt/Emily, Mike/Jessica, and Sam/Josh.


	6. Chapter 5 (Emily)

"What do you mean they found Josh?" Matt questions hastily. Emily stares at the cell phone in her hand, barely hearing her boyfriend's words. "Was he alive? Is he okay?" Her racing thoughts block out all sound, her mind leaping from one idea to another, too chaotic to focus. " _Emily!_ " Matt shouts, finally snapping her out of her haze.

"What?" she snaps, pocketing the cell phone she's been staring at.

"Em, I've been trying to talk to you ever since you hung up the phone."

"I'm sorry, geez, chill out. The news was a little unexpected, don't you think? I needed to process it, okay? And I couldn't do that while talking to you." She runs a hand through her hair, reminding herself that this isn't Matt's fault and that she shouldn't take it out on him. He's just as confused and maybe even as scared as she is. "What were you trying to tell me?" she asks, attempting to be more pleasant about it.

"I was asking you about Josh. Is he alive? Is he okay?" Matt repeats.

"I don't know. I think he's alive, but they said he was shot," Emily replies, going through her conversation with Mike in her mind. The shock of the news forces her memory of the call into jumbled fragments, which usually doesn't happen. Her memory is pristine, not photographic, but enough to net her a 4.0 GPA. So why is she having such a hard time remembering the whole conversation? There is the distinct possibility that it might be because she doesn't want to accept or think about what Mike told her, but she's reluctant to admit that reasoning.

" _Shot?_ " Matt questions incredulously. "Who- why? Why would anyone shoot Josh? That doesn't... it doesn't make any sense. Did Mike tell you what happened, why he was shot?"

"He said something about Josh lunging at them and he said that when they found him, Josh was," she stops herself, shutting her eyes. Her mind has pieced together that part of what Mike said and she sorely wishes that it hadn't. "He said that Josh was eating that old guy's head. Oh god, Matt, what if Josh is one of those _things_?"

Panic starts to flood through her mind with that train of thought. "If he's turned, then we're all screwed. The police will know that we lied, they'll probably accuse us of the explosions and Josh's being down there for so long. They'll go back and find all that stuff and think we did that sick prank. They'll think we had something to do with Beth and Hannah." Her stomach churns at the memory of Beth's head in the mines and another thought strikes her mind, making her chest tighten. "If Josh is still alive and they bring him up here, there will be a massacre. They'll spread that goddamn wendigo shit everywhere. We'll probably all die anyway. We didn't escape from that damn place just to die anyway, Matt."

"Em, Em. It's going to be alright, calm down a sec," Matt says soothingly, taking a seat beside her in the mostly empty hospital lobby. "If Josh had turned, Sam, Mike, and Chris would never let the rangers fly him back here. And if he was turned, a bullet wouldn't have stopped him. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, alright?"

"Calm down?" she repeats, her voice raising an octave. "You want me to calm down when they could be bringing a goddamn wendigo to this hospital?"

"Em," Matt says flatly. "Josh is not a wendigo."

"Maybe not yet, but he could be turning into one of those things. The strange guy's book said it was possible if you eat human flesh," she replies worriedly. "Matt, they found him chewing on that guy's head. He could be… I don't know, infected or something."

"If he is turning into one of those things, then maybe they can stop it," Matt suggests. "They didn't know what was happening to those miners in the 50s, but we do. We can do something different, we have more information than they did. Maybe we can find a way to cure him or at least stop him from fully becoming a monster."

"How?" she demands. "Did you even see those things in the mines? They were disgusting. There was nothing human about them. How the hell do you bring someone back from that?"

"I don't know, Em. Maybe we can find something in the stranger's book," he offers.

"Yeah, like how to put him down," she scoffs.

"Look, I'm just trying to be optimistic here. Josh beat the odds. He survived a week down there and didn't get killed. Let's at least give him the benefit of the doubt before we decide that he needs to be put down." Emily looks down at her hands at the remark, a little disgusted with herself. Mike almost pulled the trigger on her for this same reason, granted she wasn't eating a dead body. "This is a shitty situation," Matt adds in a softer tone. "It's impossible to process, especially after what happened. We just need to hold it together."

"I just want this nightmare to be over," she says with a frustrated sigh. It's hard enough trying to forget this whole thing without the idea of it following them to safety. The sooner they can put this behind them, the sooner they can move on, and moving on is exactly what Emily has decided she needs to do. She knows dwelling on it won't do her any good and she doesn't want any more reminders of the worst night of her life. The sooner she can block it out, the better.

"The worst part is over," Matt tells her. "Nothing on that mountain can touch us."

"I hope you're right," Emily replies. "We should make a plan in case you're wrong, though."

"A plan to what? Burn the hospital to the ground with Josh inside?"

"That worked at the lodge and the sanatorium." There she goes again, making the same plans that almost cost her life with Mike. After he pointed that gun at her in accusation of turning, how could she possibly do the same thing with Josh? She hated the feeling when Mike did that to her, it chilled her to core that her own ex-boyfriend could've killed her, and yet her self-preservation is jumping on the same boat in response to Josh possibly being turned.

"You're not serious about burning the hospital down, right Em?"

"No, I just," she sighs again, fidgeting with her $300 jacket. "I'm scared," she finally admits. "I don't want to die, Matt, and especially not from monster Josh eating my body."

"That's not going to happen," he reassures her. "They're going to fix Josh up and he's not going to turn into one of those things. We're all going to get through this, Em. Trust me."

"I hope you're right," she says, doubt lingering through her mind. She wants it to work out like Matt says, but so far nothing involving that mountain has worked out right. His optimism is sweet, but so far the only optimistic thing they've had happen is escaping that damn mountain far from unscathed. Maybe this will all work out and she hopes it will, but past experiences have taught her not to get her hopes up.


	7. Chapter 6 (Ashley - Matt)

"Chris!" Ashley exclaims as soon as she spots his glasses clad face enter the room. They've been waiting in the hospital lobby for the past two hours on Chris, Sam, and Mike to show. She runs up to the blond haired boy and throws her arms around him in a warm embrace. "I was so worried about you," she says, hugging him tightly.

"I'm fine," he replies, hugging her back. She takes a step back and puts her hands on either side of his face, examining it. "See, look, totally fine." His face does indeed look fine, but his eyes are very freaked out. "Ash, seriously, I'm okay. No bumps or bruises or anything." She studies his face for another long moment, then lets it go, taking his hand instead.

"You must've been so scared up there," she says, doubting that she could ever venture into that place again after what happened. It's not that she didn't want to help find Josh, it's that she couldn't bring herself to the place she and all of her friends almost died. Living through it once was too much and she didn't have the stomach to relive any of it more than she already does in her mind. She had wanted to go with Chris and make sure he was safe, but there's no way she could've kept her composure. She would have given everything away to the rangers and detective as soon as she saw that place.

"It wasn't the most pleasant experience," Chris agrees bravely, staring down at the floor. "Nothing too bad happened at least. I think the anxiety was worse than the actual experience," he says, managing a small laugh. Ashley forces herself to crack a smile for his benefit, despite how awful it sounds.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" Ashley asks tentatively, hating how much she sounds like a shrink.

"There's really not that much to talk about to be honest," Chris answers. "The whole basement was empty. There were some claw marks, but the whole thing was kind of uneventful. We went down to the mines and Mike found a sort of shortcut that led us straight to Josh."

Ashley shivers at the idea of being back in those mines. It had been so cold down there, so unforgiving. She remembers all too well the unnerving sounds and sights down in those mines. Every time she closes her eyes she can see those awful things and hear the shriek that haunts her nightmares. She had always hated horror movies with a vengeance, her imagination just can't take them, and that night she had been thrown into one. There's no way she's ever going to forget that kind of fear.

"Is Josh," she pauses, then in a whisper, "you know? One of those… those things?"

"I'm not sure," Chris says warily. "He was eating, uh, he had been… cannibalizing when we found him. He's been down there for seven days, so I don't really know if this was his last resort. He didn't really look like one of those things. He still had hair and I think he could see us, but I'm not sure. He lunged at us, but he's been down there so long that maybe he thought we were more of those things."

Ashley nods, processing the information. "That book said it takes four days after eating human flesh to begin showing symptoms, and then the person would rapidly turn. If this is the first time Josh has eaten it, then maybe we can stop him from turning. Maybe you rescued him early enough and we won't even have to stop it," she offers optimistically. She's not really sure if she believes that, but you've got to be positive, right? Nothing good ever came from being negative, or at least that's what she tells herself at the idea of Josh possibly being one of the things that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

"I hope so," Chris replies. "The doctors are looking at him now."

"Josh is going to be okay," she tells him supportively. Chris is her very best friend and to think about finding him chewing on a human head after a week of being stranded sends an awful churning throughout her stomach. It makes her sad to realize that the awful feeling she gets from imaging the situation to be like is probably a thousand times worse for Chris. "Maybe you should sit down, you've had a long day," she offers.

Chris shakes his head lightly, adjusting his glasses. "Standing helps keep me focused, but thanks."

Ashley nods and takes his hand, gripping it tightly. "I'm so glad I didn't lose you up there."

Chris squeezes her hand in response. "Me too, Ash. Me too."

* * *

"Hey Michael," Matt calls, going up to their class president against better judgement. The tall boy turns to look at him from his seat beside a healing Jess. "Can I talk with you for a sec?" He needs to know what happened up on that mountain and if they need to be worried or not. Mike's not his first choice of person to talk to, but he knows that Mike won't give him a sugarcoated answer either.

"What's up?" Mike questions nonchalantly, coming over to him.

"What exactly are we dealing with here?" Matt questions seriously. "I mean with Josh. Emily said that you found him eating human flesh. Was he any different? Anything like those things?"

"He was, uh, yeah I'd say he was different," Mike replies, crossing his arms. "Eating human heads isn't relatively normal, but he was down there for seven days so I can't exactly judge. I wasn't even expecting to find the poor sucker down there."

"Mike, I'm being serious," Matt says flatly. He's been trying to be nice after that night and Em had said that nothing happened between them when they first arrived at the mountain, but sometimes it gets incredibly hard to not get pissed off at that air of cockiness. He keeps trying to remind himself that the guy can't be so bad, considering he tried to save Jess and managed to help get the others to safety. But, sometimes those facts get lost behind the irritation. "Do we have anything to worry about?"

"It could be a problem in the future," Mike says lightly. "I'm not really sure how the whole turning into a wendigo thing works."

"He's turning into one of those things? You're sure?"

"No, I'm not sure. What am I, the wendigo expert?" Mike sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look, there are a lot of things I don't know here. It all depends on when Josh started to, uh, eat people and if the, erm, transformation can be stopped. The book didn't say anything about stopping the transformation, only stuff about how it happens… and I think it might've started happening."

"Tell me what the book says about the transformation," Matt requests, hoping that whatever Mike has to say about it will point in a positive direction. He's never seen Emily like this before and if Josh is turning into one of those things, he's not sure how well she can handle it. Hell, he's not even sure how well _he_ can handle it. Regardless, he'd like to be prepared.

"The book said it takes four days after consuming human flesh to start showing signs. After that, the process speeds up pretty quickly. The only signs Josh is showing is the eating dead people and that creepy ass hole in his mouth. Come to think of it, his eyes might've been a little paler than usual too. A shotgun stopped him dead on and kept him down, though, which can't be said for those things."

Matt nods, taking in the bad with the good. "The shotgun keeping him down is a good thing," he decides. "His skin's not hard like theirs, that's got to be a good sign." Mike just shrugs. "Well, did the doctor say anything to you?"

"No, they airlifted Josh first and then took us down the mountain. He's probably been here for a good hour," Mike says, checking his watch. "The EMT said something about surgery, so it'll probably be a while before we know what we're dealing with. Hopefully the doctors here won't end up like the ones at the sanatorium."

With that sentence an idea strikes Matt. "You've still got those papers from the sanatorium, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Mike replies, suspicious at the change in tone. "Why?"

"Those reports were written by doctors watching the miners transform. Maybe it can help Josh's doctors treat him," Matt answers hopefully. "It's worth a shot."

"Yeah, sure, go for it," Mike replies, pulling several folded pieces of paper out of his jacket. Matt takes the papers and sprints for the receptionist's desk, hoping that these will do some good. Hoping that these might save Josh's life. Hoping that he can get everyone out of this without any more damage. He knows it's a long shot, but if he can end this nightmare before another one begins then he has to try.


	8. Chapter 7 (Sam)

Sam sits in a softly lit post-op waiting room next to Chris. She's got a warm cappuccino from the cafeteria in her hand, but her lips have yet to touch the brim of it. They're waiting for a doctor to come out and tell them what happened with Josh. A nurse came and told the survivors that he would be out of surgery soon and that two people could wait in the post-op center for his doctor. They informed them that they usually only let family back there, but Josh's parents have been out of the country since the incident and are having trouble leaving and the doctors don't want him to have to recover alone.

She's hopes that whatever Matt gave them helps bring Josh back to himself. The others, except for Mike, think that Josh is relatively okay, that he's barely turned, but she saw it. She saw the disconnect in his eyes when he lunged at them. She saw the paleness in his otherwise sapphire eyes and the way his skin seemed taut. She saw the hole in his mouth where large incisors began to grow.

The image of Josh like that doesn't scare her. The thought of never getting him back, on the other hand, is terrifying. The pain of losing Hannah never really went away, it just reduced to an ache, but she's not sure that Josh will ever reduce to that. She has a connection with Josh, or at least she thought she had before the prank. She already feels responsible for not noticing the mental symptoms, she's not sure if she can live with not going back for him sooner as well.

"It's going to be okay," she says out loud, to herself. "Everything's going to be A-OK. Josh is going to be fine and this will all just be a really vivid nightmare."

Chris glances at her, but doesn't offer any words in return. He drums his fingers against his phone nervously and she wonders what this must be like for him. Its nerve wracking for her, but Chris has known Josh since the third grade. She can't imagine how much worse this is for him.

At that moment, a doctor comes into the room with a chart in his hand. He comes over to the two of them and Sam perks up greatly, standing up to meet the doctor. She tries reading his face, but can't detect whether the outcome is bad or good from his expression.

"You're here for Joshua Washington?" Both blonde haired teenagers nod. "I'm Dr. Ward, we just finished surgery on him about a half hour ago. We managed to get the shotgun shell out just fine, he'll only have some minor scarring and pain there for a few weeks, but no permanent damage. It's rather incredible that the shell hadn't lodged far past the skin. We did have a slight problem with the IV, unfortunately we had to put it in the vein on his neck because the skin on his arm was rigid, but that should go away in time. We think it's a side effect of the cannibalism."

Sam breathes a sigh of relief, only for the doctor start again with, "Now for the bad news. Thanks to the information you gave us, we think there's a direct correlation between the cannibalism on that mountain and the type of symptoms your friend has experienced. I'm not sure what the correlation is exactly, but it's presenting as a type of Prion disease caused by the consumption of human flesh."

"That disease, it would make his skin hard and his teeth grow?" Sam questions, keeping her doubts concealed. Those things on the mountain did not have a disease, they were monsters. Creatures far from ever bearing human resemblance. She's never heard of or seen a disease that could do that kind of damage.

"Not exactly, no. The Prion disease accounts for his changed mental state and the cloudiness in his eyes. However, we think that the flesh he was eating was contaminated from being in those mines. There are some types of bacteria that have been known to harden skin and promote excess calcium deposits, which would make his teeth grow."

Again, she doubts the doctor's answer. However, what's turning him into that thing doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is if they can stop it and get Josh back before it's too late.

"Is this treatable?" Chris questions. "Is he going to be okay?"

"I believe so, yes. We went in and removed all of the flesh from his intestines before he could digest any more toxins from it. We completely flushed every trace of human flesh out of his system. His skin has also lost enough rigidity for us to put in an IV line on his wrist and his brain function appears to be returning to normal. Now, we don't know how much brain damage has been done, but we already brought in an oral surgeon to file down the teeth, and we can sew the hole in his mouth up and get it back to normal with minimal scarring with skin grafts, and correct the cloudiness in his eyes with drops and glasses."

"Josh is going to be okay?" Sam says in disbelief.

"Like I said, we don't know the extent of the brain damage." Upon catching Sam's hopeful glance, he adds, "But other than that, your friend will be just fine." As Sam's heart soars with the weight of wendigo Josh being lifted, a younger doctor comes over and explains something quietly to Dr. Ward. "If you'll follow Dr. Johnson here, she'll take you to your friend."

Sam and Chris follow the young brunette doctor down the hallway and into the section for patient recovery rooms. Nervousness thrums through her veins as they get closer and closer to Josh's room. She keeps trying to squish her hopes down, the fear that Josh might be acting like those creatures on arrival lingering in the back of her mind. She's strong, but she's not sure if she's strong enough to watch the person she's been spending most of the last year with writhing beneath restraints or spitting out horrendous screeches at her. She's not sure she can handle watching her best friend... almost more than a best friend, become one of those things. If only she had noticed the signs sooner, saw that he was sick. This could've been avoided. She could've stopped this, helped him. _How did I miss the signs?_

"He's going to be fine," she says quietly to herself as the doctor stops in front of one of the doors. There's a split moment where she's convinced that she'll be seeing a pale, gaunt, humanoid figure that barely resembles Josh with long nails and fangs. There's one single god awful second where she's convinced that Josh won't even be human at all.

The doctor opens the door and she steps inside, relieved to find Josh looking vaguely like himself. He's three shades whiter, heavy bags hang beneath his eyes, his skin looks rather tight, and there's a gauze bandage covering most of his left cheek, but it's him. One of his arms hangs in a sling, a hefty bandage over the gunshot wound in his shoulder, and he's covered in a mountain of blankets, but it's definitely not a wendigo squinting back at them.

A sort of joy runs through Sam's chest and despite the horrific prank Josh put them through, she wants nothing more than to run over and wrap her arms around him.

* * *

 **A/N-** Thank you guys for continuing to read, review, favorite, and follow! I hope you're enjoying the story so far and reviews are always welcome. :)


	9. Chapter 8 (Josh)

The first thing to hit Joshua Washington is the bright lights. They're frayed around the edges and the orbs are fuzzy, but they're so bright that it makes him wince. It takes him a few blinks to realize that it's an unfamiliar built-in ceiling light causing his eyes so much grief. The next thing to hit his senses is the dull pain beginning to creep up on him. His shoulder feels like he's been thrown into a brick wall and his stomach feels oddly gutted.

It takes his brain a minute to remember to check his surroundings, but as he turns his head, the room he's in seems very blurry. He blinks three times, trying to make the images clear, but they only sharpen slightly. He can tell he's lying in a bed with a green blanket in a plain room with white walls and some obscure painting he can't make out on the wall. From the sterile smell, he gathers that he's in a hospital.

 _What the hell happened? How did I get here?_

He remembers being at the lodge, pulling the prank. He thought it had been funny, but his friends… they were so mad, they were so angry with him. The memory bangs hollowly against his chest, but he forces himself to think of what happened afterwards. They locked him in the shed, they thought he killed Jess, but he didn't. He never even touched Jess or Mike. Then… there was that thing. That really awful pale skinned creature with the loud shrieks; it dragged him away.

 _Come on, Josh, think harder. What happened to you?_

It dragged him down through the mines, he remembers that. And then he saw Beth and Hannah. They were yelling at him, screaming at him. He winces at the recollection, trying not to let it take over his mind. There was something else, something good. His friends came for him! Sam and Mike pulled him out of the delusions. They needed the key to the cable car station. They tried to get him out, but then… but then there was Hannah, only she was one of those things. It had the tattoo, it had to be her. She grabbed him and dragged him away.

After that the memories are vague, only feelings. He remembers hunger, distinctly starving. And fear. And pain. Not much else, though, none of the finer details. The only clear feelings he remembers are the pang of hunger in his stomach and the fear in his bones.

"Oh, you're awake." Josh's eyes dart towards the voice, too lost in his thoughts to have heard the doctor come in. He can tell that she's brunette and wears glasses, along with a lab coat. He can also make out that she's wearing a shade of red, maybe pink, lipstick, and her eyes are either blue or green. But other than that, her features are blurry. "Do you remember what happened?"

"No," he replies, surprised at how hoarse his voice sounds.

"There was a maniac on Blackwood Mountain trying to kill you and your friends." Josh begins to sweat, wondering if she's talking about him. "Your friends made it out okay by blowing up the lodge, but they said the killer got you. They came back for you, though. You were starving, dehydrated, and shot. We think your consumption of human flesh led to your feral mental state and why you attacked the police, as well as the blurriness in your eyes. Don't worry, we were able to fix you up just fine. You'll only need some skin grafts and glasses."

Human flesh? He ate someone? His stomach churns at the thought.

"Your friends Sam and Chris are here. I'm sure they can explain what happened to you. Should I send them in?" the doctor questions. _Sam and Chris?_ Josh nods at the doctor, who leaves the room. They came back for him again. They saved him from the life of a monster, from the life his sister was forced to live. They came back for him, even though they had been so angry.

The doctor returns a few moments later with two blonde figures. Though his vision is blurred, he can easily tell which figure is who. Sam's figure is much slimmer and shorter, and he could tell the soft lines of her rounded face from anywhere. Oh how he used to study those lines when Hannah had invited her over for dinner. That and, of course, her black and red ensemble gave her away. Sam always wore those colors.

Though Sam is the first one to draw his eyes, he could never mistake Chris's solid figure either. The guy's been wearing the same type of square shaped glasses since the third grade. That and he always favors the color blue, as opposed to the warmth of Sam's red preferences. The slightly spiked blond hair and stocky figure give his identity away as well.

"Hey pornstar," Sam says playfully, though he hears the tenseness in her voice. He manages a small smile, ignoring the stab of pain in his cheek, and he sees a little bit of relief wash over her.

"How are you feeling, bud?" Chris questions, a nervousness beneath his tone as well. What's got them so on edge?

"I'm doing okay," Josh replies, still surprised to find his voice is hoarse, almost like he's been screaming for days. "Nothing too serious if I'm awake and talking, right?" Both his friends manage a small sort of grin and he begins to get a heavy feeling in his chest. "I swear I didn't know anything about the things on the mountain. I never… I never… the prank was just-"

"Josh, it's okay," Sam says, putting her hand on his good shoulder. "We don't need to talk about that right now. We're just glad that you made it out safe and sound. Let's just work on getting you better, okay?" Josh nods and she takes his hand, the gesture sending a warm feeling throughout his oddly cold bones. Come to think of it, it's actually freezing in here.

"So what happened after we made it out of the mines?" Josh questions. "I don't exactly remember hurting my shoulder, stomach, or face. Did one of those things do this to me?"

Sam's eyes flick upwards to give Chris a concerned glance. After a moment, she bites her lip and asks, "What's the last thing you remember, Josh?"

"You and Mike were leading me out of the mines," he says, thinking back. "One of those, uh, those things grabbed me. It had Hannah's tattoo." He pauses for a second, sincerely hoping that this isn't his mind playing tricks on him again. "That was real, right? I mean, those really pale ugly monsters, they were real?"

"They were real," Chris says sadly. "Very real."

Josh breathes a small sigh of relief. His mind is intact and working for the moment, he didn't imagine those things. Part him wishes that he had, though. Hannah… one of those monsters had her tattoo. Is that what happened to her when she disappeared? Did his sister slowly morph into some kind of creature the more time that passed without anyone finding her? The thought shakes him deeply, his heart dropping into his stomach.

"So what, um," Josh begins, trying not to dwell, "what happened? The doctors said that I ate human flesh and that definitely does not sound appetizing."

Sam cracks a small smile, but then her expression turns serious. "Do you remember anything after being grabbed?" she questions quietly.

"No. All that I remember is you and Mike showing up and breaking me out of that, that, uh, delusion," he forces himself to say the word. "You left to go tell the others that everything was okay and Mike led me through this pool or something. I remember the monster with Hannah's tattoo grabbed me and then I blacked out. That's it." Chris squeezes his shoulder and Sam closes her eyes, biting her lip for a moment. "Why are you guys so serious? Did I- did I do something?"

"No, no, you didn't do anything," Sam assures him solemnly. "After you were grabbed, there was no way Mike could go back. Those things were everywhere around the mines. You've," she takes a deep breath, "you were down in those mines for a week. We tried coming back for you earlier, before all of this might've happened. We tried but they wouldn't let us, they thought the fire might've made the basement cave in. I'm so sorry, Josh."

He hates seeing her so distressed, the regret framed in all of her soft features. "I don't even remember the week," he tells her. "I guess I must've gotten tossed around a little, considering all this, but I'm alive."

"Josh, um, the wendigos didn't do this to you," Chris says quietly. "The way that you become one of those things is to eat human flesh. You must've had to eat the stranger's body to survive down there. When we found you, you were half turned."

"Half turned," Josh says slowly, Chris's words not sounding real to his ears. "Half turned into one of those things?"

Chris nods. "When we found you, you weren't you. You lunged at us and the detective shot you." Lunged at them? Why would he do that? Shouldn't he have been glad to see them? "The shotgun stopped you and we were able to get you back to the hospital. They cleaned out your intestines of flesh and you started going back to normal."

"How bad off was I?" Josh questions, hoping the answer's not too bad and Sam gives his hand another squeeze.

"Well, your skin was pretty tough, but the doctors say that it's back to normal now that the stuff is out of your system. They say it messed with your vision, though, and that you'll probably need glasses, but I'm sure you can pull them off. You and Chris will be twins," Sam informs him lightly.

"That is _not_ a compliment," Josh says jokingly.

"There is one other thing," she starts again. "The left side of your face, well, starting turning more than the rest. Your teeth sort of morphed into fangs, but the surgeon filed them down back to normal. You lip extended and there's kind of a hole in your face that they've sewed up, but don't worry, the doctors say that some skin grafts will get you looking good as new. But, to tell you the truth, it looks kind of like the Joker's scar and I think you might have to fend the ladies off with it. If not we can go find you a bandana and then people will think you're very mysterious," Sam says with a sly grin.

Josh squeezes her hand back, managing a small grin of his own. "So is, uh, is everyone okay? Mike thought that I- that I killed Jess."

"Everyone's fine, even Jess," Chris assures him. "One of those things dragged her down into the mines. She's a little roughed up, but she's going to be good as new in a few weeks."

"And Ashley? Oh God, Chris, I'm so sorry." Guilt falls over his chest like a ton of bricks. What was wrong with him? Why would he hit Ashley like that? She did stab him, but hitting her? He shudders at the memory. "I don't know what came over me, why I hit her. I'm so-"

"We know that wasn't like you. We're going to get you some help, bud," Chris tells him with a half-smile, but a sort of dread builds up in Josh's stomach. He had been getting help and it hadn't been working. None of it had been working. The pills made him hazy and dull when they were supposed to make him happy.

"Josh," Sam says quietly, attracting his attention away from his thoughts. "I saw your file in the workshop and I don't think, well, I don't think your doctor knew what he was doing. We didn't tell anyone about the prank, but we're going to get you a second opinion, alright? You were hallucinating down in the mines before and that's not usually treated with the antidepressants in your file."

This oddly fills Josh with a little bit of hope. Maybe his actions weren't really his own. Maybe his diagnosis was wrong all along and maybe they can fix this. Maybe they can make him better so that he never wants to hurt his friends like this ever again.

"You guys were so angry. I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt. If I had known about those things on the mountain," Josh stops. "You guys must hate me."

"No," Sam and Chris say almost in unison.

"You know we could never hate you Joshua Washington," Sam adds. "I just wish that you would've told us. We could've helped you. You didn't have to go through it alone." She wraps both her hands around his. "We're right here. Promise me you'll saying something next time, otherwise I'll just have to never leave you alone again."

"I promise," Josh says, although the idea doesn't sound too bad.


	10. One Month Later

"How are you feeling?" Sam questions, coming into Josh's room with two cups of tea. It's been nearly a month since they found him, but a shotgun wound and abdominal surgery seem to require a lengthy burst of bedrest. He's healing up nicely, though. The scars of every injury are still an angry red, but they no longer bleed for no reason and they don't hurt as badly anymore. The optometrist even visited him in the hospital and set him up with a pair of glasses. He doesn't like them, but Sam thinks they suit his features well.

"I'm good," Josh says, smiling the moment she comes into view. "I'll be ready to party like a pornstar in no time." She rolls her eyes at the comment, but cracks a smile as she hands Josh a glass. "So, how is everyone?" he asks on a more serious note.

"You should know, they've all come to visit you. Why don't you tell me how they're doing," she counters, brushing a strand of blonde hair back into her updo.

"Like they would tell me," Josh says, trying halfheartedly to mask the bitterness. "I know, I know. That night… I started it. I broke everyone's trust. I brought all of you up on that mountain and everyone almost died."

"Come on now," Sam replies, giving his shoulder a shove so he'll scoot over, giving her room to sit down beside him. "They know you weren't thinking clearly. They've all visited you too, more than once. It might take them a while to trust you completely, but they know you're trying. They don't hate you, Josh." He looks down at the drink in his hands. He's not even sure he can forgive himself, let alone his own friends. "How about this, you tell me what they've told you and I'll let you know the truth behind it, alright?"

"Okay," Josh agrees, never ceasing to admire Sam's talent to somehow turn a bad situation around. "Jess and Mike seem fine, not too mad or anything. Mike kept asking me what it was like down there, but I still don't remember anything. I'm not sure that I _want_ to remember anything," he mutters. "How am I so far?"

"Not too shabby," Sam retorts, sipping her drink. "I think Mike just wants to understand what happened, it's how he deals with things. To put that night behind us, he needs understand it, understand how everything happened the way it did. It's sort of his process, I guess," she muses. "But yeah, he is relatively fine. You know Mike, hard as nails. It takes a lot to shake him."

"Sounds like you really know the guy," Josh teases, a slight amount of genuine jealousy in his voice.

Sam rolls her eyes and bumps her shoulder against his bandaged one gently. "Sounds like you're a bit jealous," she quips. "You know, Mike and I were alone down there quite-"

"Alright, alright," Josh cuts her off. "I don't need to hear your love story."

"Aw, come on. I'm just _'joshing'_ you." Even though he tries to resist, Josh cracks a smile. The movement still hurts his cheek, some days more than others. The doctors say it'll take some time before the nerves heal. It's possible that it might never recover fully. He had kept the scar covered when his other friends came over, aside from Chris, but with Sam he leaves the jagged suture line exposed, knowing that she doesn't mind the scarring.

Seeing the slight wince in his eye, Sam runs the tips of her finger along the scar line. Josh tenses at the touch, not used to having her hands on his face. He doesn't mind the gesture, in fact it's rather nice the feel of her skin on his. He glances at her for a moment, then drops his gaze as her fingers trail off of his face and back to around the cup in her hands.

"Jess seemed better, healed at least. Mike said she got hurt pretty bad on the mountain," he continues. "She kept hiding her face behind her hair, or at least it seemed like she was. Her face seemed okay to me, though."

"Yeah, one of the," Sam pauses, "wendigo's yanked her out of the window on the cabin door. The glass and being dragged through the snow cut her face up a little bit. It doesn't look that bad, they're slowly fading, but you know Jess. If her skin's not flawless then she's not happy. I think it helps that Mike doesn't mind, and that he's got some scarring of his own. Two missing fingers is a little more noticeable than some faint facial scars," Sam says with a breathy laugh. "What about Em and Matt, hmm?"

"Emily and Matt seem to still be fighting like nothing ever happened," Josh says with a chuckle. "I think that works for them, though. Arguing is sort of like their thing. It looks like Matt threw himself back into sports right away and Emily seems about the same, maybe slightly more on edge than her usual self. When she visited, she got a text from Jess which was interesting," he muses. "She didn't talk about that night at all, though. Matt did a little, he said he wasn't angry, but I'm not sure."

"You want gossip or feelings first?" Sam questions seriously.

"Uh, gossip?"

"So apparently Emily and Jessica are trying to be nicer to each other," she begins with the glint of a smile in her eye, tucking her legs underneath her. "They went for coffee the other day where they managed not to kill each other."

"That's, uh, that's interesting," Josh says with a laugh. "I feel sorry for Mike and Matt." Sam chuckles in agreement. "Alright, tell me the feelings."

"Believe it or not, Matt somehow got Emily to go to a psychiatrist. She was having trouble with some things, but I think you can tell it's helping," Sam tells him quietly. "She'd never admit she's going of course, but it helps with the episodes. She's not having them as much anymore, which is good. I can't image seeing…" Sam stops, as if realizing she's not just talking to a friend.

"Seeing what, Sam?" Josh questions, concerned.

"Oh, it's nothing. Just that stuff in the mines."

He can tell she's lying, considering she won't look him in the eyes. "I'm a big boy, Sam. Don't worry, I won't break." He grabs her hand before he knows what he's doing, but she doesn't yank it away. What's got her so upset?

"I know you don't want to talk about this. I don't want to ruin your memory of your sisters. I don't want you to see their funeral as anything other than beautiful, which it was. Hannah would've loved the butterflies everyone released. And Beth would've loved the style of it. I don't want to ruin that image for you."

"You're not going to ruin anything. Come on, get it off your chest." His heart does pang at the remembrance of the funeral they had for the twins last week. The police had found remains down in the mines, allowing his family to finally put his sisters to rest and find closure. Deep down he thinks he knew all along, but Sam is right, they would've loved their funeral.

"Emily, she… she found Beth's remains down in the mines," Sam tells him reluctantly. "Matt made her see a therapist because she was seeing her, uh," Sam pauses, debating something, "she just kept seeing her remains everywhere. That's how the rangers knew where to find her, because Em told them. I didn't want you to have to know about that."

She glances at him through a veil of long eyelashes, but he's not angry. He's not even really shocked. He knew that his sisters were down there, one dead and the other a monster. He already knew this information. He just feels bad that Emily had to find her, that she had to see that. If anyone should've found Beth, it should've been him.

"That's something you'd need some serious therapy after seeing," Josh says lightly, squeezing Sam's hand. She looks surprised at first, but eventually cracks a small smile. "Hey, there we go. A smile. Come on, Sam. You've got to lighten up, you know?" The blonde rolls her eyes.

"I should've known this wouldn't offend you. I mean, we all know you're heartless," she replies, smacking him on the good shoulder.

"Hey, that's not very nice," he muses playfully. "I meant laugh more, not direct your insults at me."

"Mm, sure," she replies. On a more serious note, she adds, "Alright, what about Chris and Ashley."

"Ashley seems okay. I kept apologizing for hitting her, but she said it was okay, that I wasn't myself. I don't know what came over me, why I did that. Why I did any of this." He sighs momentarily, then rubs the scar across his cheek.

"You weren't yourself," Sam replies, grabbing his hand away from his face. "I'm sorry I didn't notice it sooner."

"It's not your fault, Sam." He doesn't want her to feel guilty. He's a good liar. Sometimes even he believed he was fine; he didn't make it easy for anyone to notice. He kept his psychiatric problems like a dirty secret, locking them deep inside him until they came bubbling up to the surface and wanting revenge. He didn't want help, didn't want any more doctors telling him that he was depressed. Only he wasn't. His new psychiatrist finally figured it out. The schizophrenia pills are working better than any of the other treatments he's had and for once, he finally feels like himself again.

"It's not your fault either, pornstar," she retorts. "Light enough, for you? And Ashley really is fine. She's a little traumatized and I don't think you'll ever get her near a mountain or mine again, but she's not dwelling on your behavior. The wendigos took all the focus away from you."

"What a relief," he mocks.

"Alright. What about Chris?"

"I don't… I don't know about Chris," Josh replies, the smile fading from his lips. "After everything I did to him, I don't know how he could ever forgive me. I made him choose between killing me and his girlfriend. I made him choose between killing _himself_ and his girlfriend. I even punched his girlfriend." Josh shakes his head, not liking the memories that come flooding back. "I wouldn't forgive me for that, I can't expect him to."

"Chris knows you weren't yourself."

"Yeah, well, it was still shitty. It was still his best friend doing some really shitty stuff."

"It was shitty," Sam agrees. "But he's your best friend. You guys have known each other since the third grade. He's not as mad as you think, Josh."

"I know, but it's different. We're different. Our friendship, it's not like it was." He stares at his hands for a long moment. "I just want to go back to how we were, be best friends again. There's something about him now, like he doesn't trust me. I mean, I don't blame him. I wouldn't trust me either."

"I don't think it's a lack of trust," Sam muses. "I think he's worried you'll slip away. I don't know how we got you back, Josh, but we all know far too well how quickly we could lose each other. Maybe he's worried that one day we might lose you just as quickly as we did before. Maybe he's worried he still won't see the signs. I'm still worried I won't see the signs and I'm sorry about that, Josh. We spent so much time together and I never-"

"Sam," he stops her. "I didn't let anyone see the signs. Beth and Hannah were gone, you guys had no way of knowing it was more than grief. I didn't tell you, any of you."

"Josh, we hung out almost every day. We were so close," she argues. "I thought that we were both there for each other. I thought we were helping each other cope. I thought _I_ was helping you, but I didn't see. God, I don't know how I missed-"

"Sam stop," he says firmly, looking her in the eyes. "Listen to me, okay? This was all me, this was all in _my_ head. You didn't do anything, none of this is your fault. I didn't let you see the signs. I didn't let anyone see the signs. Stop beating yourself up about it, alright?"

"Alright," she agrees, although he can hear the reluctance in her voice. That girl is a stubborn one, not quick to easily abandon ideas.

"If anything, I should be the one apologizing. I pulled the prank, brought all of you up there on that mountain," he tells her. "I am sorry about that. I'm sorry that I," he closes his eyes in regret at the memory, "stole your clothes and chased you around the house. It was _wrong_. I don't know why I did that, why I would want to traumatize the people I care about."

"You weren't you," she says again firmly. "And besides, I managed to outrun your slow ass, remember? I'm really surprised that towel stayed on, though. You almost got a glance at the goods."

"Well damn," he replies with a lopsided grin.

"Oh shit," Sam says, glancing at his shoulder. "How long have you been bleeding?" He looks down to find that his bandage is tinged red. It's not the first time this has happened in the past week. The doctors say he's been trying to move around too much, irritating the wound. It doesn't hurt, not as much anyway. It's more of a nuisance than anything considering they keep insisting he get more rest.

"Oh, uh, I don't know. I got up and brought some boxes downstairs because they were just sitting on the landing earlier. They weren't that heavy or anything, though." Sam let's out a large sigh at his explanation, knowing full well that he's lying about the weight of the boxes. He has to admit, though, she is rather cute when she's irritated at him.

"You're an idiot," she says plainly, crossing the room and going into the bathroom. He hears her rummage loudly through the medicine cabinet and soon comes back with several bandages and sterile wipes. She pushes his shirt sleeve even further back and begins to unwrap the now reddened bandage. Tossing it to the side, she begins to rip up the sterile wipe.

"Woah, no. That stuff is painful," Josh protests, scooting away from her. She stares at him passively until he eventually grumbles and stays still, rising a smirk from her. He winces as the alcohol drenched wipe comes in contact with the healing remnants of the bullet hole, buts it's not so bad. She quickly bandages it up with some new gauze and he's good as new.

"There, all better," Sam announces, satisfied with her work. "Don't be lifting any more boxes, alright?" He nods reluctantly. "Does it hurt?"

"No, it's fine. Good job, Nurse Sam." Sam rolls her eyes at the comment and pulls his shirt sleeve back down, leaning her head toward his. She's close, close enough for him to smell the light scent of her shampoo. _Close enough to kiss_. And almost as if hearing the thought, she tenses slightly. She glances up at his face, blue eyes staring right into his.

Before he can contemplate whether or not to kiss her, Sam reaches up and presses her lips against his. Her lips are as soft as he imagined they'd be, but the feeling… he could've never imagined the warmth that comes flooding through with the kiss. The flutter he feels in his chest at that moment is the happiest feeling he's felt in a long time.

Josh reluctantly breaks the kiss, leaning back to look at the blonde haired girl in front of him. She smiles sort of sheepishly and his mouth stretches into a lopsided grin of its own. He brushes a stray stand of hair behind her ear, a kind of feeling he's never had before running like a train of pleasant electricity through his veins.

"So, uh, Sam?" he begins with a smile.

"Yes, Josh?"

"You, uh, you wanna go steady?"

Sam laughs. "You're an idiot Joshua Washington."

"Hey, I could be _your_ idiot," he offers, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.

"With a proposition like that, how could I possibly refuse?"


	11. Epilogue

"Mike, what the hell are we doing here?" Matt demands, walking quietly behind the class president. They're in the hospital, the one that treated them after the incident on Blackwood Mountain. The only problem is that half of the hospital is deserted considering it's three in the morning. Matt had been sleeping peacefully next to Emily when the shrill ringing of "We Will Rock You" broke him back into consciousness.

"You need to see something," Mike replies solemnly, hugging the sides of the hospital corridor wall. He's never seen Mike quite this quiet, or serious for that matter. Whatever Mike brought him here for makes Matt's heart speed up and hit his chest cavity a little harder.

"What do I need to see?" the jock demands. Mike continues on quietly, glancing around suspiciously. They're in the basement, which is already abandoned enough during the day. At night… well, at night it's even more eerily quiet. The only sounds are the light padding of their hurried footsteps and the harsh buzz of florescent lights. "Mike, seriously. What are we doing here?"

"I need you to see something," he repeats firmly, an edge to his voice.

"Yeah, dude, you said that. What do you need me to see? Why the hell are we even here at three in the morning?" Mike shakes his head at the question, coming up on the locked doors to the morgue. "Mike," Matt says warily, looking up at the block letters over the door. He doesn't like this at all. Morgues are creepy enough during the daytime and he's had enough creepiness to last a lifetime.

Mike proceeds to pull out a hospital ID that clearly isn't his and scans the both of them into the morgue as quietly as possible. He motions for Matt to crouch down with him, slinking against the wall. When they come to the door to the autopsy room, Mike holds a finger to his lips and glances slyly through the window in the door. After a few moments, the class president shuts his eyes dismally, then gestures for Matt to look through the glass.

The athletic boy goes up to the window cautiously, both curious and wary about what he might see. His heart beats hard against his chest, knowing that whatever's got Mike so solemn can't be a good thing. _It can't be anything worse than what we saw on that mountain_ , Matt tells himself. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to look, eyes shutting horrified on the image he finds there.

The doctor who had treated Josh, Dr. Ward, stands over one of the bodies from the morgue, gnawing on the arm of it. Blood stains his mouth and a guttural sounds escapes his throat. His eyes have devolved from brown to a bluish color and his nails are far too long. There's no doubt that the man in that room is turning into a wendigo.

Matt falls back and creeps behind Mike back to the safety of outside the main door to the morgue. His heart races in his chest, pumping adrenaline though his veins. Panic seems to flood his nerves, memories of those things up on the mountain flooding through his mind. This is supposed to be over. All of this is supposed to be _over_.

"What the hell is happening?" Matt demands in a whisper. "We killed all of the wendigos and we reversed Josh."

"The stranger's book had this lore on the wendigos," Mike begins darkly. "It said the whole curse originated from Native American spirits. The stranger said that its best not to kill the wendigos unless you kill all of them, including the original one, otherwise these souls get released into the air. Well, we killed all of them, except for Josh."

"We're not killing Josh," Matt interrupts flatly.

"I'm not done," Mike says dismissively. "These Native America souls apparently had kind of a leader, or at least the stranger thought one of them was the origin of the entire thing. He called him Makkapitew and he's the one that, uh, that took over Hannah. Since he's the strongest, I'm guessing that little fucker worked his way into Josh and then when we stopped him from transforming, he hitched a ride inside the good doctor there."

"You're telling me that by saving Josh, we brought some Native American spirit that started the whole damn wendigo problem back here?" Mike nods. "Well that's just great. Really-freaking-great." Matt crosses his arms in frustration, resisting the urge to kick something. He takes a few deep breaths, trying to ignore the fact that their nightmare has followed them home, and asks "So, how do we fix this?"

"Well, we've got three options," Mike replies. "We can call the rangers and let them deal with it, even though it will go right over their heads, or we can attempt to lock the wendigo up for the rest of eternity."

"What's option three?" Matt questions warily, not liking the sound of the other two choices.

"I don't think you're going to like it," Mike warns.

"Just tell me."

"Option three is to burn that transforming little sucker alive."

"Mike, there's a person in there, a doctor. That man saved Josh's life and it's our fault he's like that, _because_ he saved Josh. We can't repay him with murder. That's just- it's just _wrong_. We can get another doctor to scrape out his stomach and get him back to normal like Josh."

"And then someone's going to have to save that doctor and then the next doctor and then the next doctor until one day no one notices in time and they fully turn and slaughter everyone around them," Mike argues. "Look man, I don't want to kill this guy. I know it's wrong, I know there's a person in there. If we had known this was going to happen," he shakes his head. "We've got to end this once and for all."

"Even if I agreed with this insane idea, how would we even do it? Our faces are all over the hospital cameras."

"Leave that part to me."

* * *

Sam sits outside the ranger station, wrapping her crimson jacket tightly around her. She's waiting for the rangers to finish questioning Josh. She had been hanging out with him at his house when Mike called from a random person's cell phone. After a few ominous sentences, he hung up and showed up with Matt at Josh's house twenty minutes later, where he told her the story that sent a chill down her spine.

Mike said that they waited outside the hospital until the doctor came out, and then they followed him. He went into the woods behind the hospital, which is evidently where the blossoming wendigo inside of him is attracted to. He made a camp in the thicket of the woods, taking souvenirs from the morgue and storing them there. Matt looked like he was going to throw up when they said that and even worse, Mike looked a little green as well.

They threw alcohol everywhere and burned the whole thing up, Dr. Ward included. Mike said they made it look like an accident, hence alcohol instead of gasoline. They even started the fire with a cigarette.

The whole thing is like another drawn out nightmare. She knows that Mike and Matt had to do it to end the wendigos once and for all, but being back in this mess again makes her more scared than she cares to admit. Here she is lying to the police again about those damn monsters. She's not lying quite as much as Mike and Matt, but she'd still rather not get arrested for giving her friends a fake alibi, or witness any of her friends getting arrested for murder.

It sounds like Mike and Matt have it under control, though. The only reason any of them are even here is because they were seen skulking around the morgue. She collaborated with Mike that it was a stupid dare for the both of them and that they had no clue Dr. Ward was down there. The ranger she talked to seemed to buy it at least. Hopefully Josh's equally made-up responses will win them over.

At that moment, the doors to the station open and Josh comes walking out. He's got a thick bandage over his cheek, even though she told him the scar looked fine. He said he didn't want to freak anyone out, but she's actually gotten rather used to the line of jagged flesh.

"Why on earth are you electively sitting out in the cold?" he questions.

"I don't like ranger stations," she replies. _Not after being questioned in one for hours thinking you were dead_ , she adds mentally.

"And they say I'm the crazy one," he adds with a grin. "Seriously, are you alright?"

"I'm fine. How did the questioning go?"

"Peachy. I was almost certain the guy was about to say 'you meddling kids' but I guess he held it in," he retorts with smirk. "I'm pretty sure they're going to let Mike and Matt go at least, considering we are all scarily good liars. I definitely know who to call if I ever need to commit murder."

"Oh hush," Sam says, smacking him on the good shoulder. "You really think they're going to let them go?" she asks on a more serious note.

"Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it. They don't have much and I heard some of them talking about releasing Mike and Matt. They played it pretty well, not to mention the authorities found some missing bones from the morgue in the doctor's little woodland hideout. The only person with access was the doctor after all; there's no way Mike and Matt could've done that. Some of them think the doctor drank himself in regret and passed out with a lit cigarette."

Sam nods, processing. "What about you, are you alright?"

"Me? Yeah, I'm totally fine. Why wouldn't I be?" He drops the joking façade for a moment, seeing her solemn expression. "I know, I'm the one who screwed him, transferred my monster life to him. It's my fault we're here now. I just can't seem to stop fucking up lives, but there's nothing we can do now. I wish things didn't have to go this way. If I'd have known being saved meant someone else's death," he takes a deep breath, "but none of us knew."

Josh wraps his arms around her and adds, "But it's over now. There's nothing left of that mountain that can come after us."

"I like the sound of that," Sam murmurs with a grin. "And, to be fair, you can count the number of lives you've screwed up on a little less than both hands."

"Oh, is that all?" he muses.

" _We-ll_ ," she begins, drawing out the sound. "I can think of one life you have made better, minus a towel chase."

"I'll take what I can get," he says, leaning down and plopping a kiss on her lips. "Let's go home and repress this for the next twenty years."

Sam laughs. "Sounds good to me, pornstar."

* * *

 **A/N-** And so we've come to the end of the story. I hope you've all enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it! I really do appreciate all of the support for this story and thank all of you who have read, reviewed, favorited, and followed so far, it means a lot to me. Feel free to let me know what you thought of the story and again, thanks for all of the support. :)


End file.
